- The ARC - California Edition -

Food for Preventive Thought

Partners In Prevention V
The fifth Governor's conference on prevention has been scheduled to be held early next February. This is a continuation of the 'Focus on Wellness' adopted by the Department of Developmental Services.

The exposition is being designed to be a family-focused conference and will be steered to address research, policy development, training, program planning, and service delivery issues related to infants and toddlers with special needs and their families.

The conference will be held at the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center in San Diego on February 4 through 6, 1998. Featured topics for the conference include:

-- Building the Brain during Fetal Development
-- The Attachment Theory and Its Relevance for Early Intervention Programs
-- Feeding and Swallowing Disorders in Infancy
-- Understanding the Nine Temperamental Traits of Infants and Toddlers
-- Linking Cognition, Brain and Gene
-- Motivating Children With Autism.

For additional information, you should call (916) 654-2777. The DDS is inviting parents, professionals, service providers, as well as, public and private policy makers to attend.

Birth-Rate Trends
During the past 25 years, births in California rose from a low in 1973 with approximately 298,000 to over twice that number in 1990 with approximately 612,000 births.

Since 1991, births have fallen by an annual average rate of 2.5 percent. The 1995 level of births, 551,226, reflects a total fertility rate of 2.4 children per women. Information you always wanted to know? The Department of Finance has posted on the Internet a report containing the actuals and their projections of births by COUNTY for the period 1970 through the year 2006. You can download a copy through the following web address:

http://www.dof.ca.gov/html/demograp/96births.xls

Bacterial Meningitis
Before the introduction of the conjugate vaccines, Haemophilus Influ-enzae type b (HIB) was the major cause of bacterial meningitis in the US, and meningitis was primarily a disease of infants and young children.

In a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reported a new order in the causal factors of meningitis. Instead of HIB being the leading microorganism that causes meningitis, Streptococcus pneumoniae is now leading in frequency, followed by Neisseria meningitidis, group B streptococcus, Listeria monocytogenes, and then HIB.

(Bacterial Meningitis in the United States in 1995; New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 337, Number 14, October 2, 1997)